


(wanna let you) take me over

by beccastanz



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Aftercare, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ass Play, BDSM, Blindfolds, Breathplay, CNC, Choking, Cock Slapping, Come as Lube, Consensual Non-Consent, Cunnilingus, Deepthroating, Dom/sub, Dominant Kylo Ren, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Face Slapping, Glove Kink, HEA, Humiliation, Hurt/Comfort, Internet Hookup, Kink Negotiation, Masturbation, Mildly Dubious Consent, Negotiations, No Pregnancy, Orgasm Denial, Praise Kink, Pussy Spanking, Rape Fantasy, Rape Roleplay, Rape/Non-con Elements, Restraints, Rich Ben Solo, Safe to Read if Triggered by Pregnancy, Safewords, Spanking, Spit As Lube, Spit Kink, Subdrop, Subspace, Vaginal Sex, Verbal Humiliation, but like ass play lite, but like mild praise kink is that a thing?, degredation, emotional bdsm, emotional subdrop, kinkily ever after, literal hurt literal comfort, pussy slapping, use of a gag, yes we have come as lube and spit as lube and zero shame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 10:47:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24848506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beccastanz/pseuds/beccastanz
Summary: She is tired of being treated as fragile. Every lover proceeds with caution, afraid she’ll break—none of them ever consider that she wants to be broken.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 684
Kudos: 1271





	1. Desert

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vuas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vuas/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note before proceeding: this is a consensual noncon fic. I have chosen not to tag it as rape because everything is negotiated in advance. However, it still may be triggering so please proceed with caution, or exit if this is not your thing-do not ever feel obligated to read something. I’ve tagged with what I know will show up, but may add tags. If any tags are added I will warn before each chapter. If I miss something, please don’t hesitate to let me know. I’ve been mulling this idea over for a while now and I hope I can do it justice! Please do not feel any guilt consuming this or any other type of fic :)
> 
> Beta by [vuas](https://twitter.com/thevuaslog)
> 
> Moodboard by [Punky](https://twitter.com/punkyao3)

  
One hour.

Rey has one entire, blissful hour of alone time in her and Rose’s shared apartment.

She intends to make use of it.

Her dry spell has gone on so long she thinks her virginity is growing back (if such a thing were possible), and the string of boyfriends and one night stands before that were mediocre—at best.

Rey is used to taking care of herself; she survived a long trek through a lonely childhood, self-sufficient at 18. She can take care of herself tonight, too.

She pushes through the door at breakneck speed, desperate and already wet with the knowledge that she can be loud tonight. 

Rough.

Her coveralls are halfway down by the time she gets to her bedroom, closing the door out of habit and shimmying them off the rest of the way before she dives to her bedside drawer.

Her favorite toy gets a prime spot next to her pillow, upon which she props her cell phone. It’s queued up to one of her regular favorite videos: the thumbnail displays a woman, not unlike Rey, in the way her small breasts sit high and proud on her chest, a tiny waist above slightly rounded hips. However, the other woman is the lucky one.

In her long hair (blonde, but Rey could use her imagination), a man’s hand was intertwined, twisted at the scalp, her soft tendrils taut between his fingers.

The thumbnail is a moment, frozen in time: cheeks stained with tears and mascara, her mouth split open on an unrelenting cock. 

Rey lays on her bed, soft, threadbare cotton still encasing her torso and hips, and presses play.

The filthy, unmistakable sound of a throat being breached fills the air, and Rey shudders on an inhale as she watches intently, hands held firmly behind her back, dildo just out of reach.

The woman’s hands are behind her back too, but she’s been given the gift of a beautifully braided rope for restraint, something to fight against as she takes and takes and _takes._ Rey can only fight instinct as she allows the wetness to pool between her legs, untouched.

And then the woman smiles, just barely, around the thick hardness. Rey lets out a huff of frustration, unnerving and unwelcome as confusion wracks her being for a fleeting moment. Then, the woman on screen is pulled up by her hair and tossed onto a bed, and the moment passes.

Rey is struggling against her will. She can feel the dampness at the crotch of her panties but refuses to touch, determined to wait it out until the string of tension snaps.

The man is balls deep in the woman now, pushing in with no regard for her body. She is his to use, and Rey wants to be her in this moment. But then the woman smiles again, and Rey looks away until the sounds of pain mixed with pleasure renew.

When her moans become breathier, higher, only then does Rey reach for the dildo, moving her panties to the side and pushing it in with one smooth stroke. She keens, because she can, and relishes the stretch, the burn, the pain at the edge that she refuses to admit she craves. She matches the pace that the man sets, reaching for a peak that remains elusive.

She feels her cunt clench around every thrust, bearing down as much as she can to make the spread as punishing as possible. She drags the ridges against her inner walls, pressing up in search of that spot that makes her hips buck with reckless abandon, fingers furiously circling her clit.

The man keeps fucking the woman on Rey’s tiny cell phone screen, but she feels worlds away.

_Why isn’t this working?_

She’s been waiting all week for this blissful hour, keyed up and frustrated to the point of bursting. She fucks into herself as hard as she can, writhing on the bed, her moans combined with the tinny voices on the speakers, and it isn’t enough.

One frustrated huff later, and she clicks to a new video.

This woman is on her back, legs folded up to her shoulder as she is split open by what can only be described as a monstrous cock. It looks as though it should be painful, but the woman is loving it, enthusiastic moans pulled from her with every thrust.

That doesn’t work either.

Rey huffs, the next click leaving a streak of her own arousal on the screen. She can’t bring herself to care as she makes her way through three more videos much to the same end: none.

Then, something catches her eye, tucked away in the suggestions tab.

_“ Rape fantasy: little thing gets taken” _

Rey’s entire body tenses as she reflects.

Her last boyfriend, who looked at her like she had grown an extra arm when she asked if he would call her a whore.

The one before that, who, when she asked him to tie her up, said she was a freak and bolted before he could get his pants all the way up.

The last almost hookup, a sleazy man at a bar, tattooed and clearly unhinged, but with an aura so menacingly enticing she had been entranced. His hand was on her ass before he opened his mouth, but before Rey could question his motives (or hers), Rose pulled her to their Uber with a fearful look and a _thank goodness I got there in time, Rey, he seemed dangerous._

She pulls the dildo out of her cunt, a soreness she has yet to earn settling in as she wipes her hands on the sheets.

She clicks the video.

It looks homemade, the camera position indicating it does not want to be seen as the edges of the frame blur, likely in a hidden spot on a low dresser, an air of mystery lent to the scene as a woman settles on the bed, hands tied behind her back, ankles bound, blindfolded. The room is outfitted in gray, sheets and walls soft in contrast to her pale skin, the black restraints holding her nearly immobile.

Save for the ropes, she is nude, the only other cover on her body provided by a sheen of sweat and anticipation.

A man enters, his head outside of frame but his body taking up almost the entirety. He dwarfs her. 

“Look at this,” he whispers. 

The woman shakes, a whimper escaping her.

Rey thinks she hears an echo, but then realizes—it's her.

She pulls the phone closer, a lifeline in her pursuit of release. Her tank top feels cloying now, her haste to remove it matched only by her desire to not miss a second of the unfolding debauchery.

The man on screen reaches for his zipper, the drag agonizingly slow until finally his cock springs free. It is, by all accounts, average, and yet the context has Rey salivating, reaching for her hastily cleaned dildo to have something to do with her mouth. She sucks the tip, her essence not yet removed, adding an additional layer to the embarrassing arousal rolling through her in waves. 

The man strokes himself to full hardness as the woman cries, pitiful whimpers that could almost be mistaken for pleasure had it been allowed.

When he moves behind her, he wastes no time, pushing himself into her waiting entrance with a single thrust. Rey is practically feral in her move to rip the dildo from her mouth, shoving it back into her dripping cunt until she feels the base against her entrance.

The woman’s distressed cries fill the room and this, _this_ is what was missing. Now when she matches the thrusts of the man on screen it feels punishing, raw, wrong, everything she needs. Her other hand roughly pulls at a nipple, a hiss escaping through her teeth as she reddens the bud. 

She then moves it to her clit, rubbing it between two tightly pressed fingers, arching into the pressure, chasing the fullness, thrusting, fucking, _coming, coming harder than she’s ever come_ , twitching, gasping, shaking, her entire body convulsing as the slapping sounds of flesh on flesh continue through the speakers.

How did she get here, needing more and more desperately to see a woman fall apart at the hands of a brute?

A shaky hand wipes the sheets, then reaches to cut off the artificial sounds, leaving Rey with only the real ones. She realizes she is panting wildly, attempting to regain control in the wake of an earth shattering realization.

She is tired of being treated as fragile. Every lover proceeds with caution, afraid she’ll break—none of them ever consider that she wants to be broken. 

————

Every night that week is spent similarly, though with the addition of headphones for Rose’s sake. 

She comes over and over, fist shoved deep in her mouth to muffle her screams as she drives into her cunt over and over with everything she can. Her fingers, as many as she can take, every toy she owns until only the biggest is enough.

She comes lying on her back, much the same as that fateful night.

She comes bent over her own bed, balancing one arm on the mattress as she fucks herself from behind.

She comes kneeling on the floor with one arm draped on her desk, holding her up as a hand rubs furiously at her clit. It’s replaced by a vibrator at the highest setting pressed hard and direct on the nub, legs giving way in the wake of overwhelming sensation, cunt clenching so hard that the toy wedged inside of her is forced out. All the while, a phone is propped up, playing another video from the couples’ series.

Soon, just videos aren’t enough, and as anyone might when discovering a new fantasy, she turns to the depths of the internet. 

Post after post detailing the depraved desires that she shares with them.

At least she's not alone.

Every day she wakes up, goes to work at the shop, comes home, says a quick hello to Rose, and then disappears to exercise her dirty little secret.

She wants this, whatever this is. She thinks of the man at the bar, the one with no boundaries or qualms. She thinks of the men on the street whose gazes linger—she should feel angry at their stares, their blatant disregard for her autonomy, but all she feels is a desire to be chosen.

After a week and a girls night with a bottle of wine at Rose’s insistence because “you’ve been so busy, Rey, let’s hang out,” Rey is feeling bold. Unhinged.

Most of the posts on this thread are vulgar, dirty, explicit in their lawlessness. She knows she wants _something_ in this vein, but nothing has been exactly right.

She clicks the button to create a new post. Plenty of people post. It’s just words, never intended for follow through. She is simply blowing off steam.

_I imagine I’m alone somewhere, perhaps on the street in front of my building or at a hotel. A man sees me and is unafraid of consequence, overcome. He wants me, needs me, must have me regardless of whether I want him. I don’t want him because I don’t need him. I fight, kick, scratch, claw, but he is undeterred. He knows I am not fragile. I can take it, I can take whatever he gives me, and I will. I can fight and fight and fight until all fight is gone, only limpness, only serene surrender. I’m tired of making choices. Take them from me._

She posts it just before sleep takes her.

————

Morning brings a hangover and several new messages.

Most are worthy of immediate deletion, vulgar promises far past the bounds of her few short sentences written in a drunken haze—but one stands out among the rest. It’s short, direct...and intriguing.

**KyloRen** : I could give you what you asked for, if you meant it. Would you let me?

There are a million reasons to delete this one too, allow it to dissolve into the ether of the internet, write it off as another horny man trolling for nudes or a literal predator.

But it doesn’t feel like the rest, and Rey wants to be reckless more than she wants to be safe.

So she replies.

**Kira92** : That depends. Are you a murderer?

**KyloRen** : Last I checked, no. Are you?

She balks at that, though it’s a fair question considering she’d asked the same of him.

**Kira92** : Nope.

Will that suffice?

**KyloRen** : Well, good to know neither of us are murderers. Now that that’s out of the way, tell me if you really want what you posted.

**Kira92** : Why would I post it if I didn’t want it?

**KyloRen** : Words and action are entirely different. I would like to give you what you described, but only if you’re truly prepared for what that means.

Rey is going to be late for work if she doesn’t get up soon—but she’s frozen, phone in hand as she ponders his message. Is this just a fantasy? Could she go her whole life with porn and disappointing lovers and quiet missionary with the lights out and never a real thrill? Or was this an itch that would never depart?

She needed to scratch it.

**Kira92** : I want it.

**KyloRen** : Good. 

In this moment, Rey has power. She can’t wait to lose it.

She messages him on the train when pockets of cell signal creep through the darkness, phone hidden away from peering eyes as they exchange pleasantries.

**Kira92** : I would ask where you live, but that seems forward. 

**KyloRen** : Forward, sure, but logical. I travel often for work, I’m happy to meet you where you are, if you’ll share where that is. 

**Kira92** : I’ll decide, once we’ve talked.

**KyloRen** : Fair.

**Kira92** : So, now what?

**KyloRen** : I suppose you should start by telling me your safeword.

She nearly lurches with the force of the train stop as she reads and rereads his message. Didn’t he understand what she was asking for?

**Kira92** : Are you kidding?

**KyloRen** : Why would I be kidding?

**Kira92** : Because that’s like, the antithesis of point.

**KyloRen** : That’s a good word. Is that the one?

She can’t help a desire to chuckle at that—but she won’t. She should not like this man. He was a fantastical tool, a mere stranger that she was soliciting to fulfill her, nothing more.

**Kira92** : I don’t want a safeword.

**KyloRen** : If you don’t pick a safeword, we aren’t doing this. I am not ignorant of the thrill of this situation, but we are traversing a thin line and I need to know you have an out if it becomes too much, and that you’ll promise to take it if you need it. So?

Rey is stewing on her brief walk to Plutt’s shop at the center of the city. A few minutes later, her phone pings again.

**KyloRen** : If you’re backing out, tell me.

The only thing more distressing than giving herself an out was throwing away this chance all together.

**Kira92** : I’m not backing out. I’ll pick something. But I won’t need it.

**KyloRen** : You may think that, but you must confirm that if that changes, you will use it.

His language is clipped, businesslike. A small comfort, small enough to accept. 

**Kira92** : Fine.

**KyloRen** : Besides, the next step is to tell me your limits, so if you’re clear with me on those then it shouldn’t be a problem.

Another huff escapes her, and she is grateful for the distraction of methodical work, throwing her arms under the hood of a car whose owner was most certainly going to get ripped off for the repair.

Safewords and limits were dampening the appeal a bit, but as Rey worked up a sweat, rolling the ideas over in her mind, she supposed it made sense—certain things would ruin the encounter more than a backup plan.

When Plutt finally retreated to his office, she was able to slip out her phone again, wiping a sheen of sweat from her brow and replacing it with a streak of grease before opening their thread again.

**Kira92** : No watersports or scat. 

He takes some time to respond too, no doubt also employed and perhaps with a boss as callous as hers.

**KyloRen** : Good. What else?

**Kira92** : That’s it.

**KyloRen** : That’s it?

**Kira92** : That’s what I said.

**KyloRen** : Mind if I ask a few follow up questions?

**Kira92** : Fine.

His caution was admirable, she supposed, though it was slightly infuriating that he refused to take her at her word. She knew what she wanted—she just hoped he was up to the task.

**KyloRen** : Can I hit you? Anywhere?

**Kira92** : Yes. I’ll hit back, though.

**KyloRen** : I hope so. Anal?

**Kira92** : I’ve never had anything in my ass.

**KyloRen** : So no?

**Kira92** : Not no. But I’ve never had anything in my ass. So do with that what you will.

**KyloRen** : Ok. You’re sure there’s nothing else?

**Kira92** : I’m sure...

**KyloRen** : Restraints? Degradation? Spanking? Deepthroating?

**Kira92** : I’m sure.

**KyloRen** : Ok. And did you pick a safeword?

She thinks of childhood, of hot sand and sun unrelenting on her too long walks to school, of leering eyes before she understood them, of constant hunger. 

**Kira92** : Desert.

**KyloRen** : Desert as in Sahara or desert as in “desertion?”

And that’s just a bit too close for comfort. 

**Kira92** : Like Sahara. 

**KyloRen** : Thank you. Mine is falcon.

**Kira92** : You need a safeword?

**KyloRen** : Yes, Kira. This is intense on both sides. Can you respect that?

She flushed at the thinly veiled admonition, worried that if she pushed any further she would lose him. Or had she lost her chance already? Sneaking another glance at Plutt’s office, she shakily types her reply.

**Kira92** : Yes, sorry, I will respect that. I promise.

**KyloRen** : Good. 

**KyloRen** : Can I see you? It would be good to know who I’m looking for.

She let out a curse at that. When Chewie looks up from the other side of the garage, she gives a mumbled excuse of “stubbed my toe” before she begins filtering through her paltry selection of pictures, only ever taken at Rose’s insistence. What if he didn’t like her? What if she didn’t fit the bill of the pretty thing he wanted to wreck?

The thoughts swirl for an hour as she finishes a repair, determined to calm before definitively exposing herself to this man, this man with a fake sounding name whom she had no clue of either—and yet she found herself uncaring at that. A knowledge of him would only lessen the thrill. 

She finally settles on the photo from a rare night of clubbing, Rose’s insistence on a sequined crop top and red lip elevating her usual look to one more playful and on the edge of debauched. 

**Kira92** : Here you go.

  
Her next message is typed in a panic, desperate to preserve the allure. 

**Kira92** : Don’t show me you.

**KyloRen** : Ok.

**Kira92** : So...where do we do this? I’m not exactly down to tell you where I live.

**KyloRen** : Of course. I wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable. 

This time, she allows herself to snort at the irony—“uncomfortable” was a tame adjective in comparison to what they were about to do.

**KyloRen** : Would you give me an approximate area? Is that ok?

And Rey throws her last bit of caution to the wind. 

**Kira92** : Chicago.

He sends an address—a short walk from Plutt’s, directly at the city center, and she wonders what exactly this mystery man does for a living to afford a night at one of the most posh hotels around. But it doesn’t matter.

**KyloRen** : It’ll be under Ren. You can pick up a key when you arrive. No pressure to use it, but here is my number, just in case. Text, don’t call.

She notes with surprise that they share an area code. It would seem like fate, if she believed in such things, but the world was too cruel to allow for such frivolous ideals.

**KyloRen** : Monday?

An odd choice, but doable. And given the headfirst dive she was about to take, still steadfast in her refusal of fate, she closes the app—and texts him. 

**Rey** : See you Monday. And my real name is Rey. If you care. 

She is sweating through her overalls more than usual, tank top clinging to her pounding chest. 

She ignores the siren in her head that says he could probably figure out her address if he really wanted to. He had her phone number and first name now—if he were so motivated, he could find her.

Is it a siren...or a symphony?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I welcome your comments here and on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/beccastanz)


	2. Waterfall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m so glad you’re putting yourself out there. You deserve to be treated like a queen!”
> 
> _Or a whore..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m overwhelmed by the response to this fic! Thank you all so much for reading. As a reminder, this is a consensual noncon fic, so while it is not technically noncon, it still may be triggering. As another reminder—please feel free to have ZERO GUILT consuming content like this. 
> 
> We wouldn’t be here without my partner in filth, my amazing beta, [vuas](https://twitter.com/thevuaslog)
> 
> Ok *steps off of my soap box* let’s get to it.

  
The next few days pass in a haze, nothing on Rey’s mind except how much closer Monday is getting—it’s too fast and not fast enough. She’s distracted, the weight of her cell phone an ever present taunt as she considers whether they’re really going through with this. She has no doubt that she’s going to the hotel—and what a hotel it was, she discovered between fixing cars and furiously chasing release each night. The photos were exquisite; crystal chandeliers, king size beds, whirlpool tubs. She continues to push down the curiosity over who this man is that has deemed their rendezvous worthy of a waterfall shower and a minimum of $300 for the night. Has _she_ been deemed worthy?

Desert. 

Perhaps she had not meant Sahara after all.

She works through the weekend like always—thanklessly, but a steady paycheck is enough for her half of the rent and occasional takeout and the stash of nonperishables that she keeps in the bottom cabinet.

Sunday night is another girl’s night, to Rose’s delight, and Rey realizes she needs to share at least a semblance of the truth with her best friend.

“So,” she starts, gathering her courage through a sip of wine, dinner long gone, “I kind of have a date tomorrow night.”

“Rey, that’s great! How’d you meet?”

“Just...online, you know? The apps.”

Rose nods knowingly.

“I’m so glad you’re putting yourself out there. You deserve to be treated like a queen!”

_Or a whore…_

“Thanks, Rose. I guess just don’t wait up for me tomorrow? I’m...probably going to spend the night with him.”

_…at some ridiculously fancy hotel while he desecrates my very being_ goes unsaid.

“Oooh, exciting!” Rose squeals, then takes a slightly more serious tone through their shared tipsiness. “Just be safe, okay? You never know with these online guys, text me if anything comes up.”

Rose, to her credit, limits the questions— _thank goodness she didn’t ask to see a picture_ —though Rey can tell she is desperate for detail. But her friend needn’t know about exactly what she was planning to do on her “date.”

————

Her night of sleep is fitful, dreams of a hulking figure, his hands around her throat, a cock splitting her in half, a voice telling her to _fucking take it, you little—_

Ringing pierces the air from her phone, the last moments of her premonition swept aside by the need to get ready and pack her bag.

In her early morning haze, Rey wanders through her closet, rifles through her drawers, and wonders: _what do you wear for something like this?_

In the end, her bag is stuffed full of everything from pajamas to her sexiest dress, a barely there thing that Rose insisted she purchase since “it’s on sale” and “your ass looks killer!” Choice is impossible in her frazzled state. It’s enough clothing for several days, including her spare coveralls. Was she even expected to spend the night? Or would he just use her and ask her to leave?

No time left for contemplation, she hoists the bag over her shoulder and begins the trek to the train station, mind alight with possibility.

————

Time moves slowly on a good day at the shop and today is not a good day. By the time six o’clock arrives, Rey is vibrating out of her skin, consumed with a dichotomous need to get what’s been missing and run the other way. Was she allowed to want this? Would she _let_ herself have it?

She begins the walk to the hotel, the path memorized hours after he’d sent the address, her mind racing.

_Will he be there already? Should I shower? Do I wait for him? Text him?_

The thrill of the unknown just adds to the ache, culminating in a dampness between her legs before she even enters the lobby.

The moment she steps through the door, every head snaps in her direction.

Apparently there is a conference in town—the lobby is absolutely teeming with men in perfectly tailored suits. Most of them take one look at her—grime of the day on her overalls, no doubt a smudge or two on the bare patches of skin—and turn away in disgust. A few let their gazes linger, seeing past the first layer and clearly imagining what is beneath.

She darts to the check-in desk before she loses her nerve.

“Reservation for Ren?”

The woman behind the desk has some judgments of her own on Rey’s appearance, but a better poker face than most.

“Of course, you’re in room 1308 for five nights.”

Rey swears she misheard.

“Did you say five nights?”

“Yes miss, paid in full, though if you have a need for room service or dry cleaning that can be charged to the card on file.”

Rey nods in a haze of confusion, keycard in hand and feet carrying her to the elevator of their own accord as she contemplates Kylo’s intentions.

_Wasn’t this a one night only event? Why did he pay for five nights? Is he...going to the conference? Was he being pragmatic?_

The doors close, the elevator filled to capacity with pretension—most of them share looks of abject disgust at her appearance (or smell? She should probably take a shower after all). Only one spares her the decency of a short glance, free of judgment, with what appears to be a quirk at the corner of his mouth before he turns his eyes back to the closing doors.

At least one man in this hotel was capable of some semblance of respect.

————

She exits alone at the top floor, wandering in search of her room... _their room._

As she reaches for the keycard, a sharp rush of panic stings in her veins. What if he was already here, waiting to accost her the moment she crossed the threshold?

A fresh wave of fear—and arousal. The line between them is blurry. 

Rey braces herself and pushes open the door.

The room is quiet, entirely undisturbed. The only light is what peeks through the slit in the curtains as dusk settles over the city. Without that, it would be pitch black. 

She takes another cautious step, allowing the door to shut with a solid **click**.

She only jumps a bit at the sound.

With each light she turns on, the room appears more vast, revealing a new piece of furniture or expanse of space large enough that she could do her entire workout routine without the inevitable bumps and bruises provided by her couch or coffee table. It’s exquisite in every way, and she realizes this room is not the $300 one she saw online—this was the best room in the hotel.

Who _is_ this man?

Her bag ends up in the closet, several times larger than the one in her apartment. The bathroom is her first stop—it’s outfitted with several shower heads, an array of soaps and lotions, and two of the fluffiest bathrobes she’s ever seen. She wonders if her bag has enough space to snag one.

Sitting on the porcelain toilet seat (and seriously, was this thing heated?), she contemplates where the evening is headed.

She’s tense—he could arrive at any moment. Was she supposed to text him? Something to the effect of “hi, it’s Rey, I’m here, please hurt me!”

Perhaps not.

She’ll just...wait. She’s good at waiting. Practiced, even.

A waterfall shower seems like a great way to pass the time.

She steps under the spray, immediately hot and soothing on her perpetually aching muscles. Her dollar store toiletries were immediately abandoned when she saw the array of scented goodies provided by the hotel. She is intent on using every luxury product possible in her short stay.

Shampoo comes first, fruity and sweet as she works up a lather, eyes closed against the possible sting—that’s not where sting belongs— _ass thighs cheeks, maybe even..._

After a rinse, conditioner is next—having it separate is something she doesn’t typically afford herself, sticking to 2-in-1 bottles of whatever’s on sale. This, however, is heaven as the moisture sinks into her frayed ends and dry scalp. She lets it sit for a few minutes, like the internet says you should, like she never does at home to save on the water bill. Those few minutes punctuated only by the sound of the water allow her to work herself into a frenzy.

She keeps her ears open for any noise, a door creaking on its hinges, heavy steps traversing the vastness of this wretched scene—none yet.

As she rinses the conditioner out, she wonders what he would do if he found her here—naked, wet, arguably more vulnerable than she would like to be at their first meeting. Would he step under the spray, undeterred by his clothed state? Shove her against the glass wall, facing the mirror? A front row seat to her own exquisite torture?

The conditioner long gone, water caresses her back as one hand finds a nipple, the other, her pulsing cunt, driven wetter by possibility.

She gasps at the amount of moisture she finds, none of it from the waterfall above, all of it from the waterfall within as she considers every way this man could overtake her inside these slick walls.

Would he be angry if he walked in, right now, as she teased herself to climax, furious at her audacity to take the pleasure away from him? Or perhaps she would not find pleasure at all under his hands and that, _that_ is nearly as enticing as the peak she has almost found, if she could just push a bit more—

The hand at her breast comes to rest around her own throat, and now both hands press hard, windpipe and clit under a glorious pressure as she falls over the edge, legs shaking and bending under the intensity of her release until her knees hit tile and she is panting under the unrelenting waterfall.

————

Hair dry and body encased in the robe she was _definitely_ going to take, Rey sat on the bed, contemplating her next move. Surely, he would be here any minute? Should she bother getting dressed, or allow easy access to her trembling flesh?

The room was the perfect temperature for nudity, and guided by her perpetual exhaustion, she decides to slip under the covers while she thinks.

Did he expect her to have a weapon of some sort? Hopefully not, since all she carried was years of self-defense training and a sharp wit. Would she disappoint him?

The fear in her throat was not for what was to come, but to his assessment of her— _did he do this often? Would she measure up? Should she hit hard, or allow him his ego?_ No, no, that wouldn’t do. This was a battle—a battle she was prepared to win through loss.

She burrows deeper into the luxurious sheets, questions pouring into every crevice of consideration. Her eyes close—to focus, surely.

_I wonder if I’ll wake up with hands around my neck..._

And sleep takes her.

————

Sunrise peeks through the curtains, and Rey awakens at the light to a lonely room.

_Was it morning already?_

She takes stock of her body, free of soreness or marks, and comes to a harrowing realization— _he never showed up._

A growl of frustration escapes her as she swipes her phone from the nightstand.

No texts.

No messages.

Desertion.

But maybe he was delayed in transit—she clings to this belief as she types out a text, her lone outreach from days before the only message in the thread.

** Rey:** I arrived last night but clearly you didn’t—let me know if we’re still doing this.

She sets her phone down with a huff, determined to experience the luxury of a morning shower given her shortened commute.

————

Her entire day at Plutt’s—radio silence. She’s never refreshed her messages so often, and frustration grows by the hour. 

The key card weighs heavy in the pocket of her coveralls, begging to be used. 

He did pay for five nights—she was entitled to the room then too, surely?

Maybe he was a prick, maybe he was ditching her, maybe he was stuck in traffic and his phone died and he was going to come to the hotel and fuck the living daylights out of her—but for him to do that, she had to be there. And he had to be coming.

He had to.

————

She enters the lobby to the same stares as yesterday, none of them privy to the fact that her oil stained self was taking up residence in the penthouse.

She strolled through the maze of artful couches between the entrance and the lobby, a flicker of recognition mirrored between her and a man—the one from the elevator, the only one to smile in her direction. He was handsome, that much was clear even from a cursory glance. And perhaps his gaze flitted over her with a calm, focused interest as well, for the brief moment she invaded his line of sight. She allowed this attention to fuel her, to steel her resolve—she was worthy. 

She was worthy.

Another ride up to her empty paradise, and she is itching to stand under the warm spray yet again.

————

A couple of hours pass. She tells Rose the overnight has been extended—Rose assumes the best, but Rey knows the worst.

The room service menu tempts her—surely this man, who rents out a penthouse for a week, can afford to treat her to dinner, especially after being so ridiculously rude. She’s been left high and dry, hungry and desperate.

A girl can only survive on protein bars and granola for so long.

She orders a steak—might as well go all in.

The man on the phone is pleasant enough, even when she requests that they swap out the “roasted rosemary fingerling potatoes” with French fries. It’s a French fries kind of night.

When knuckles rap the door, her heart quickens— _is it…_

“Room service!”

She deflates, opening the door to a kind smile and trading her steak dinner for three crumpled dollar bills—he was paying for the meal, but after years of being underpaid and overworked, she refused to let this kind soul go untipped, even if she could hardly afford it.

She places the tray on the vast desk, and a lonely existence pervades.

The meat is somehow both red and tough, the promise of something great inevitably deadened by reality. At least the fries are good, so coated in salt they’re nearly bitter, crispy, hot oil threatening to burn. 

Her eyes flit to the door every few minutes, willing there to be a knock, or an instantaneous thrust of power blowing it off of its hinges as a man storms in to take what is not his, and yet deems himself worthy to covet.

She longs for what was promised, hope diminishing with every bite of mystery man’s fortune.

But the bed is soft and the shower is warm and all of it is paid for—so she intends to wring every bit of worth out of it that she can.

The sun sets, and the room is yet again pitched into complete darkness, the only light provided by her phone as she angrily types out her final text before starfishing on the king size mattress. She came here for risk, and apparently she was stuck manufacturing it herself.

** Rey:** Thanks for dinner, you fucking prick 😘

————

She wakes up alone, unharmed, and disappointed.

Today is her day off, a lonely Wednesday every two weeks all she affords herself.

The frustration is palpable in the thud of her heart, near unbearable, enough so that she decides this is the last day she will spend in this cursed penthouse, filled with the ghosts of a fantasy. 

She has a free day, a weeks’ worth of sexual anticipation coursing through her veins, and a hotel full of businessmen. 

Rey was not leaving this place until she got laid in the bed someone else paid for—a final “fuck you” to the man who could’ve fucked her.

Only then will she make her escape.

————

She informs Rose that she will not be home until late tonight—or early tomorrow. Then, she spends her day in a fantasy.

She orders a $26 continental breakfast. A basket of miniature pastries arrive with coffee and juice, crispy bacon and fluffy eggs, a sheer mountain of satisfaction. She eats every bite. 

She rents a movie she doesn’t care about on his card and half watches it, like someone who can afford the luxury of wasting $7 and two and a half hours.

Then, she resumes her position beneath the waterfall—the bath still feels too luxurious somehow, like if she were to submerge herself in the depths, she may never escape.

She takes extra care in the shower, shaving her legs with the fanciest razor she’s ever seen, smoothly passing over the contours of her calves and thighs, the few stragglers around her belly button, her underarms, the delicate skin of her cunt, ever so cautious in her movements, leaving a tasteful patch—merely decorative, certainly not functional.

She thinks of the night that might have been yet again, hand moving down to her newly bared flesh, teasing out a sigh that sounds nearly like regret. She imagines rough hands spreading her open to be viewed, a prize, a thing to consume. She imagines a sting on her cheek, a pull at her scalp, and she pulls an efficient climax from deep within her soul, ignoring the lack of satisfaction it brings. She is dismal in her hope that tonight’s conquest will be any better, but at least she will not be alone.

She dries off, slathering herself in the fresh, sweet lotion on the countertop, dry skin eagerly soaking up the offered moisture, parched by a lifetime of dry air and a lack of opportunity. Such time to pamper was scarce—of course it made sense to use what was offered. 

This was just for her... _right?_

She orders far too much food to be considered lunch.

And yet another luxury, she allows herself a nap. Her constant glances at the door only cease in her sleep.

She awakens with resolve, and fishes her Rose-approved dress from her bag, the material so skin tight that the wrinkles disappear when she slides it over her newly smooth and soft skin. Makeup is minimal, a couple of coats of mascara and a tinted lip balm all she feels comfortable applying without Rose’s steady hand.

She plunges the room into pitch blackness before her exit, the sun no longer providing a sliver of light. 

The walk to the elevator is wrought with anticipation—and yet, it’s still not what she was hoping for. Maybe it will still be enough.

————

With the amount of money she's saved on food for the past 3 days, Rey allows herself one glass of the cheapest wine on the menu as she scans the hotel bar for prospects. The interested looks from men abound in her direction, but none have been bold enough to actually make an approach. The conference-goers travel in packs, near impossible to pull one away from the herd. It was also tough to spot one with an empty ring finger.

A buzz eludes her—she sips at her drink too slowly to feel anything but want.

The bartender is friendly, name tag displaying “Kaydel” as she expertly pours and mixes drinks, keeping up with friendly conversations at every corner of the bar, smoothly cutting folks off from the liquor or from their own fruitless advances on her, all without missing a beat.

“Are you here for the conference?”

“No, just...passing through,” Rey offers, still hoping that she wouldn’t have to make the first move herself, willing the right man to materialize in front of her eyes, even after a futile half hour.

One moment, she’s chatting with Kaydel.

The next, she sees _him._

The man from the elevator, the man from the lobby, seated just a few stools down, stealing Kaydel away to place his order.

Now that Rey has time to look, she is further struck by his handsome aura. A combination of strong features and dark locks just on the edge of “too long to be professional” shine under the dim lights of the bar, tie knotted at the base of his throat, wider than fashionable and yet complimentary to his vast form. She thinks she’s finally found her target.

She just hoped he would feel the same.

Drink nearly gone, no closer to a buzz and cursing her combination of nerves and a tiny bladder, she waves Kaydel down.

“I’ll be right back to close out.”

Kaydel nods, and Rey slides out of her seat. She has to pass by him on her way to the restroom, and she swears she can feel his eyes on her ass as she walks by.

Good.

Biology served, she allows herself a moment to look in the mirror. This isn’t what she came for—it feels like grasping at straws, a shell in comparison to what was promised, but she refuses to leave without something to show for it. Who knows, maybe elevator guy would happily call her a whore.

Only one way to find out.

She reaches into the top of her dress in an attempt to put as much cleavage as possible on display, and she exits the bathroom, prepared to make the first move if she has to.

Except he isn’t there.

Kaydel waves her over.

“Hey, that guy who was over there paid your tab and bought you a drink, asked me to give this to you.”

She reaches numbly for the perfectly folded napkin, opening it to read what has to be the most beautiful cursive she’s ever seen.

“ _Looked like you could use this. Enjoy your evening_.”

Kaydel sets down a fresh glass of rosé, swirling with fresh floral notes, not unlike the lotion covering every inch of Rey’s skin.

“I waited to pour it for you, just to be safe.”

Rey gives a perfunctory nod and takes a large gulp of the offered salvation.

_Fuck this. Fuck this week, fuck elevator guy, and fuck Kylo Ren. I’m going home._

She leaves the glass half full in her haste to reach room 1308, scrub the shame from her skin, and revel in the comfort of only the known.

She refuses to cry as the elevator doors shut, even if she is alone.

_I don’t need this. I don’t need him. I don’t need anyone._

The thoughts move through her consciousness restlessly, as much a mantra as a desperate hope for truth, and her feet carry her on the well-practiced route down the hall without her even having to look up.

Her hand trembles as she lifts the keycard, a green light paving her way even with her head held low, her mind full, her eyes blurred.

Perhaps that’s why she’s so surprised when a hand reaches around from behind to cover her mouth, and a solid mass of heat shoves her into the room, kicking the door shut behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes you can [yell at me ](https://twitter.com/beccastanz)it’s ok I deserve it


	3. Falcon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’ve never been a good girl in my fucking life,” she wheezes.
> 
> “Hmmm,” he says contemplatively, fingers tightening just a bit more around her throat as he leans in to whisper, “...maybe I can make you one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW! Here we are, chapter 3! I have been overwhelmed yet again with the response to this story so far. I hope you all appreciate what I’ve come up with. Remember, guilt free fic consumption or bust! Chapter 4 is going to take longer as I work full time and am taking classes, but I promise to move as fast as I can! 
> 
> PLEASE NOTE: this chapter is intense. I’ve updated the tags. The majority of the aftercare will be in chapter 4, so if you’d like to wait to read until that’s written, please do. 
> 
> This chapter is dedicated to the Socratic Seminar ladies—can’t wait to hear your thoughts!
> 
> New moodboard by the magnificent [marriedreylo](https://twitter.com/marriedreylo)
> 
> Endless thanks to my beta [vuas](https://twitter.com/thevuaslog)

The door slams.

There is not a single inkling of light—Rey is blind, somehow surrounded on all sides by a single man. 

_Was this Kylo?_

Her first instinct is to scream—that proves impossible through the vast expanse of flesh covering her mouth. His hand spans the entire area between her nose and her jaw with room to spare, his pinky sliding under her chin—so she goes for the first possibility that flits through her head.

She spreads her lips, and bites.

Her assailant pulls away with a curse, but before she can gain any ground, he’s spun her around, pushing her against the wall with a hand at her throat.

The first backhand comes as a shock, springing free the single tear from each eye that she had so desperately kept back on her walk to the door.

Pain radiates across the side of her face. It blooms, red and right beneath the skin. Her neck stays firmly in place under his other hand, and yet...she can feel that this is just a warm up, that he’s exercised restraint, that he could knock her on her ass with a single hit, should he feel so motivated. A raw, untamed power thrums in the room.

“Aren’t you something,” he marvels, almost to himself, a voice like hot honey—sweet, burning, rich. 

She struggles to reach him, clawing at air, gasping beneath a hand that has yet to do more than press deep enough to threaten.

“Stop holding me at arm’s length and I’ll show you _something_ ,” she seethes, still disconcerted at her lack of sight, desperate to know who held her under but willing the ignorance to last.

She realizes with a jolt that she has no way of knowing whose hand it is that is keeping her captive. It should wrack her being, should frighten her to no end—and it does, in a way. But the accompanying feelings? The hot flare in the base of her gut, threatening to consume her? The trembling of her legs as a myriad of possibilities flash behind her closed lids? Those are pushed to the side, beneath the far more harrowing realization that **not** knowing might make this even bet— _no, you can’t, what the fuck are you thinking, you need to find out if he’s—_

She tamps down the war.

He finally starts to move forward, the air shifting as his elbow bends toward her chest.

His mistake.

First, her nails graze his face—she knows she didn’t break skin, but can imagine the redness budding to the surface. A thrill runs through her at the thought of them having matching cheeks. His head bounces back, catapulting his torso forward.

Her knee lands in his gut with a satisfying thud—or at least, it would have been satisfying if it had done anything to deter his movements. Instead, it seems to only annoy him. 

In one smooth motion, he removes his hand from her throat just long enough to grab each wrist, pinning them above her head and holding them crossed under one hand. The other is back at her throat near instantaneously. It takes seconds, a single blink, and she’s pinned beneath an amount of power she’s only dreamed of.

His foot kicks at her ankle, forcing her legs apart as her brain runs a mile a minute, too shaken to do anything but recalibrate as the enormity of what she’s chosen comes crashing down.

She strains under him—futile.

“So,” he starts, voice far calmer than the situation should dictate, “do you think you can be a good girl for me?”

She freezes, incredulous at what she’s hearing, unable to hold back a mirthful chuckle—it comes out broken under the hand stealing her breath.

“I’ve never been a good girl in my fucking life,” she wheezes.

“Hmmm,” he says contemplatively, fingers tightening just a bit more around her throat as he leans in to whisper, “...maybe I can make you one.”

There’s a pause, tension thicker than the thigh between her legs, forcing the hem of her dress up inch by aching inch. She holds firm, refusing to tremble.

The silence is strung out, the air carrying their panting breath in an endless loop, his lips hovering at her ear, and hers at his. They are each waiting for something—she hardly knows what through her haze, until a possibility hits her— _is he waiting for her to safeword?_

If this is really Kylo Ren, maybe—she may never truly know the man shrouded in darkness. There was only one thing she absolutely, unequivocally knew, the realization hitting her harder than his knuckles had grazed her cheek—even if that one little word could make this stop, she didn’t want to say it.

Instead, it’s her turn to whisper.

“I’d like to see you try.”

“Oh sweetheart,” and that word feels like fire from his lips, “breaking you is going to be fucking delectable.”

And she can’t help what happens next—a full body shudder at his violent promise, involuntary, embarrassing—and yet the embarrassment comes back around to fuel her heat in an endless feedback loop.

He feels it.

“Already trembling, hm? Are you as desperate of a slut as you seem?”

“Fuck you,” she bites out, and in the darkness, she hopes her aim is up to par as she spits.

This time, it’s a slap, both cheeks now surely reddened under his powerful hand, her windpipe released in his fury to show her her place in all this.

“And quite the mouth on you, too.”

His hand pries at her jaw, forcing her to open as he slides his fingers across the insides of her cheeks in a calm assessment.

“If you bite me again, you won’t like what comes next,” he promises darkly, continuing his methodical examination of every inch of her mouth.

Fear, guilt, embarrassment, confidence, _arousal oh fuck all consuming deadly hot and dangerous—_ Rey can’t thing of a single thing he could do that she wouldn’t like...except...

His assuredness pisses her off. She thrusts her thigh—an attempted warning, a threat to the most delicate part of him, but all it does is spur him on, his fingers now pushing even further, testing.

She lets out a small whimper when he hits the back of her throat, and her cheeks redden again, this time without the assistance of his aggression.

“Should’ve known you had no gag reflex with that slutty little dress. You’re practically begging for it.”

His admonishment is punctuated by a thrust of his thigh, the dress now bunched under her ass, precariously taut. His thigh is a threat too, a sick promise.

“I don’t beg,” she manages around his fingers, her words garbled but intent clear.

“We’ll see.”

She feels her own drool escape around his fingers as he presses down against her tongue. Her soul is on fire, every touch a thousand times more electric without the aid of sight.

She feels him get closer, his breath ghosting across her lips, near enough to kiss—and he spits in her mouth.

_Disgusting violating wet hot decadent—_

“Swallow,” he commands, not an ounce of room to fight back, and _god_ if that doesn’t make her desperate to do just that.

But then his fingers withdraw, pressing her jaw closed and she can’t help the movement of her throat as she swallows it all—the anticipation, the fear, the desire, _him_.

“See, you can be good. You just need a teacher.”

“Strong words from a guy resorting to this shit to get laid,” she teases, and _oh_ this was _fun?_

She hears him exhale through his nose, a button pushed as his hand resumes its position around her throat, this time giving a tight enough squeeze that she feels a zap of panic, traveling, resonating between her legs—the feedback loop renews, the cyclical nature of shame and want.

“I’ll have you know I could _get_ anyone I want—you should be flattered.”

His hand is too tight to laugh this time.

“Fuck—flattery—you’re—a monster,” she barely manages to get out, head spinning against the adrenaline.

He loosens his grip for barely a moment, enough time for her to gasp just once before he whispers oh so gently—

“Yes I am.”

Every part of her is trembling now, legs so weak she can barely hold herself up. Were it not for his thigh and the punishing grip on her wrists, she surely would have collapsed by now.

Just as well, since his next move is to force her to the ground.

She falls with a crash in the dark, carpet burn against her knees, her hands instinctively going to her neck as he releases them. She gasps, taking in lungfuls of air like she’d forgotten how oxygen tastes against her tongue, only remembering his fingers, his essence as he spat down her throat like a thing to be used.

She feels a hand at her hair, yanking her up until her torso is pulled as taut as the tendrils trapped in his fist.

“Now, here’s what’s going to happen next,” he starts, confidence in his voice belying his complete ignorance in her tenacity.

He’s left her hands free.

She allows herself to scramble for his waist, praying he’ll think she’s just looking for purchase against him—her wrist brushes against an unmistakable bulge, the conflicting allure and shame battling as she suppresses a whimper, determined to get a lick in. 

This time, with ample area to wind up, her uppercut to the gut is far more devastating than her knee.

He releases her—to cradle his stomach, she assumes—and she scrambles away on hands and knees, attempting to stand while still adjusting to the darkness. She still couldn’t see, furniture placement a mystery as her instincts screamed _go run get away fast dangerous_ fighting against _strong power hot wet red sting._

No sooner has she gotten one leg out from under her than she is pushed back down on the ground again, this time with a knee between her shoulder blades as she flings her limbs uselessly against his hold.

“You can’t hide—not from me,” he growls in her ear, so close she feels a brush of his hair against her cheek, the first and only soft touch since he pushed her inside.

Then, the sound of fabric on fabric brushes the air as his knee travels down her back. His hands grab her arms and he pulls until she’s arched, tense, with his calf pressed across her thighs as he winds the fabric—his tie?—around her wrists.

“It appears I underestimated you.”

“No shit.”

“Again with that mouth...it’s going to look so good choking on my cock.”

Her mind flits to the video from her first night of discovery, mascara tracks and messy cheeks and delirious fullness and _fuck she should not want this but damn it if her heart isn’t a drumbeat against her ribs._

He removes his leg from her thighs, pulling her up by the silky prison until she’s back on her knees with a hand at her scalp.

“Let’s try this again, shall we?”

He asks like she has a say in the matter.

He removes his hand briefly, self assured now that she’s bound.

She hears the telltale clink of a belt buckle, the drag of a zipper.

“You’re going to suck me off like the greedy little thing I know you are. If you try even an ounce of funny business, well,” she feels a drag of leather across her exposed collarbones, “don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Is it possible to hear someone’s grin?

There is another sound, like creaky wood—a drawer opening—and then something covers her eyes. He moves away again, this time to pierce the darkness.

A sliver of light peeks through the bottom of the mask, a gap no more than a millimeter or two, enough to tease her with the possibility of sight, only to guarantee a lack of it.

His hand moves to her jaw.

“Open.”

Rey clings to her resolve, mouth clamped shut.

Then, something hot and heavy hits her cheek and _fuck that is his cock_ and _fuck is it that big—_

“I said,” he hits the other cheek now and a bead of wetness spreads, “open.”

And she does.

His head breaches her lips and she immediately knows this man will leave her jaw aching. He’s warm on her tongue, pushing in with ease given his earlier assessment of her abilities.

Rey is fighting a losing battle, knowing that she should be scratching and clawing against this breach of self, but the stretch and burn consume her, a repressed craving brought to light as he starts fucking her throat in earnest. Tears well under her blindfold at the stretch, wetting the fabric, a few escaping to track across her cheeks, mixing salt and mascara with precum and spit and she just knows she must make a pretty picture—of all the embarrassment that rolls through her, nothing cuts quite as deep as when she realizes she wants to be pretty. 

Now she’s angry.

His hand tightens in her hair, yanking her up and down his length as the rhythm becomes erratic.

Anger simmering in her gut, Rey wants to play with fire—his next thrust is met with a scrape of teeth.

He lets out a curse, immediately vacating her throat in favor of slapping her across the face and _fuck_ he’d really been holding back before because this one knocks her on her side, legs buckling as she crashes into what must be the side of the bed, mattress cushioning her fall.

“You _whore,_ ” he whispers menacingly. “I warned you.”

Her throat is raw, her cheeks and wrists ache, but Rey is not one to back down from a challenge—not from someone else, at least. The challenge _within_ was ignored in favor of a vocal sparring match, a craving to feel anything other than want.

“Yeah?” Rey rasps, feeling dangerous, as unhinged as the man from the bar who felt entitled to know the curve of her ass. “Do your worst.”

“I intend to,” he says, lifting her entire body with ease and depositing her onto the bed, bound wrists trapped under her ass as he pushes her up against the headboard. She is at the apex of two fantasies, the night she found her calling thrust yet again into her mind—hands bound only by will—then that first revelatory video, the blindfolded woman, wrists tied, and she finally lets a small part of herself admit it—she is blindly, deliriously aroused. 

With realization comes frustration, the emotions crashing into each other, a wave beating against a particularly stubborn rock, eating away at it bit by bit, so slowly you don’t realize it until it’s too late and the rock is gone, overtaken. Arousal is her wave and wetness pools.

The bed dips and a hand reaches behind her, yanking at her zipper with such ferocity she’s tempted to complain, but the air of the room is soothing against her bared flesh, the fabric cloying in the wake of such intensity.

He pulls it down past her breasts, pausing to land a light smack on the underside of one, pinching the nipple of the other. She can’t control her yelp, morphing into a hastily cut off moan at the unexpected stimulation.

“Did you say something?” he asks, and she huffs at his cockiness, wanting desperately to prove him wrong, to prove he has no control over her, even as further wetness collects in the minuscule thong around her hips. 

“You wish.”

“That’s right, I do. Please feel free to admit that you’re enjoying this,” he says, so casually, as if his words have no potential to spin Rey off her axis with the thought of permission.

He guides the dress off the rest of the way, her skin pebbling—from the air? Or something deeper?

“Now, I think it’s time you learn what happens to disobedient sluts, hm?”

The way his voice turns up at the end of every threat unnerves her—like he’s posing a question instead of burrowing into her psyche, finding every barely repressed corner and baring it to the light that she still cannot see.

He flips her on her front, and she can only imagine what she looks like now—flushed, desperate, with her ass on display and not an inkling of sight to anticipate what was next.

“You know I can take whatever I want.”

He says it so calmly, complete control dripping from every syllable, unaffected by the fact that he’s been punched in the gut, wrestled a woman to the ground, had his cock down her throat until he was right on the edge—none of it mattered. He exuded composition, a sharp focus piercing the air—a focus on her. She could feel his stare boring into her, blindfold doing nothing to dampen its intensity. She just _knew_ he could see every part of her, could unravel her. Maybe…

Maybe she could let him.

The first spank is a shock, so lost in thought that she’d startled at the pain radiating across her right cheek. She absolutely keens for it, tears welling at both the sting and the resulting pleasure.

“Did you like that, sweetheart?”

She’d throttle him if she could, would wrap both hands around his neck and squeeze if it just got him to shut _up_ to stop _peering into her soul like he had any right to be there._

“No,” she bites behind gritted teeth.

“I—think—you’re—lying.”

Every word is punctuated by another slap—her other cheek, the tender flesh where ass meets thigh, circled back to the same patch of skin that felt the first blow. She thinks back to the shower, of shampoo threatening her eyes, those same eyes now shielded from shame— _that’s not where sting belongs._

Whimpers escape her despite her best efforts. They feel like a special kind of loss.

“Just—tell—me.”

She sinks into the sheets, unable to hold up her hips under the strain of keeping her last ounce of composure.

“I’m not giving you anything.”

“What a pity,” he says, mock disappointment pouring off of him in waves. “I suppose I’ll have to get you wet myself.”

He flips her back over, hands pinned yet again as he yanks her thong down over her hips. She regrets the choice to wear a pair that minimized her chance of panty lines—there’s so much less fabric to soak up her embarrassment.

He spreads her legs punishingly wide in one smooth movement, and _spits_.

She shudders in his grasp, twisting in every direction, to run away, to get closer, to chase that mortifying debauchery he was doling out in spades.

When he trails a single finger between her lips, she can no longer avoid the evidence of her arousal—his contribution had to be a mere drop in the bucket compared to what had collected between her legs at every clutch of his hand at her neck, every thrust into her throat, every spank, until her underwear became an afterthought in the rivulets on her thighs.

“You’re wet, sweetheart,” and she hears his grin again. “Fucking hell, you’re _dripping_.”

She whimpers out a soft “no,” only egging him on.

“What a little whore you are, getting off on this.”

He sounds nearly reverent.

“I guess I didn’t spank you hard enough. Or maybe,” his finger turns into an entire hand, messily cupping her mound, “I chose the wrong spot.”

He pauses. 

Waits. 

She feels him lean forward, cannot help a small buck into his hand as he invades her space, resting his cheek on hers, his other hand coming to rest on her throat—not squeezing, just feeling the steady thrum of her heart beneath the tender flesh.

Again, their breath is the only sound in the room, though she notes that his finally has a touch of raggedness.

Again, she wonders, _is he waiting for that one little word? The word so far from wanted that it hardly crossed her mind?_

The word doesn’t come—then his hand smacks down on her cunt, and _she_ nearly does.

The yell that escapes her is almost inhuman, the feeling unlike any she’s ever experienced—delicious anguish she wants again and again under his hand but refuses to beg for.

“If you’re going to be that loud, I think I ought to gag you—there are other people staying at this hotel, you know. Don’t want to be rude.”

He keeps one hand on her throat, the other reaching for something until she feels a scrap of lace trailing up her leg—her underwear, she realizes with mortification.

“I think these will do just fine. Since you weren’t wet, that shouldn’t be a problem, right?”

“Right,” she whispers, and this time, when he pries her jaw open, she lets him.

The taste of her own arousal is soaked into the cloth as she clamps down, reliving the night she was overcome with the need to have her mouth full, dildo pressed against her tongue as she dove into debauchery.

He spanks her cunt again, the noise both sharp and wet, her cries muffled.

The junctures of her thighs are next, each one hit in rapid succession before another over her mound—then one catches her clit, and another tear escapes the blindfold.

She whimpers around the gag of her own making, mind racing, unable to censor the garbled word she never thought she would utter.

“Please.”

She feels him freeze above her, then he hastily reaches to tug the lace from her aching jaw.

“What was that?”

Another tear.

“Please.”

“Please what? Stop? Keep going? Use your words.”

A full body shudder wracks her being, and all she can muster is—

“Just...please…”

He releases her neck to brush a stray lock away from her sweat-slicked forehead, removes his hand from her cunt, the sound of him sucking his fingers so close to her ear.

“Don’t worry—we’re not done yet.”

He flips her again, secure enough in her compliance that he steps off of the bed—she hears him shuck his remaining clothes before climbing back in. There is a crinkle of foil, a tear, a small hiss escaping him as he rolls a condom down his length.

He hoists her hips off of the bed.

One moment, she is empty, clenching around nothing, and the next, she’s fuller than she’s ever been in her life.

No toy can compare to the stretch this man is giving her—the burn of pleasure-pain ricochets through her like lightning, bright, warm, _dangerous_ as he buries himself to the hilt. She yells a curse, nostalgic for the small bit of pride a gag had afforded her.

At his first thrust, she swears she’s gone mad—this is everything she needed, everything she craved but couldn’t admit, utter recklessness. She needn’t bear down to feel the stretch—he filled her to the brim, every nook and cranny discovered as he began pounding her into the bed.

There was no stopping her noises now, a dictionary’s worth of sounds as he grabs her bound wrists, using them for leverage as he thrusts, a controlled pace nearly torturous as she buries her face deeper into the sheets.

“You know,” he says, far too conversational for the way he is decimating her from the inside out, “I’ve been watching you for days.”

She chokes on air.

The elevator.

The lobby.

The bar.

The **_bar._**

Elevator man was Kylo Ren.

“You were so precious—waiting for me—getting abso—lutely—desperate.”

“Fucking—hell—” she eeks out between thrusts, crushingly elated at his use of the word _precious._

“Are you going to come?”

“Fuck you.”

“I think you are. I think you’re going to come with a stranger balls deep in your cunt.”

And despite herself, she _knows_ she’s close, clenching harder with every thrust, still desperately clinging to the notion of control.

So when he pulls out entirely, she lets out a sob, an angry thing.

“Don’t be afraid, I feel it too,” he whispers, like they’re sharing a secret in this penthouse, one they’ll carry to the grave.

When he enters her again, she knows she’s a goner.

“You’re going to come, sweetheart, but not without admitting what we both know is true,” he says, resuming his hold on her wrists, his pace more punishing than before.

“I fucking know you are. You can do it, I won’t tell.”

A promise from a stranger. Maybe he keeps them.

“Just tell me you like it and I’ll let you come,” he whispers, chest against her back, and now she can hear the plea in his voice, a nearly imperceptible undercurrent to his confidence.

“You’re still holding on...let go.”

He brushes a knuckle against her clit, and Rey feels the last of the fight leave her body. 

Serene surrender.

“It feels so fucking good, Kylo.”

His pace doubles, fingers reaching back down to her slippery mess of a clit to rub delicious circles.

“Call me Ben when you come...please…”

The wave breaks the rock, and she gasps, a stranger’s name on her lips as she relinquishes choice.

She feels him fall over the edge with her, hips stuttering until they collapse in a heap on silk sheets.

————

She loses track of herself for a moment, mind erased with the intensity of her climax, one unlike anything she’s ever felt.

Eventually she feels a shift, gentle hands at her wrists, freeing them from their restraint.

She feels the mattress bounce up when a large weight is removed, hears footsteps pass by, the sound of a door opening—then closing.

She starts to shake, hand trembling as she reaches for the blindfold, pulling it off to reveal an empty room.

The shaking becomes violent, wracks her being as she falls, confusion, panic, stress, abandonment, _desertion he left me of course he left they always leave what am I doing what was I thinking—_

She doesn’t realize that her eyes have closed or that her breathing has become erratic—not until she hears a door open, the bathroom door, _he was in the bathroom, why did he leave me, what’s happening to me, come back come back—_

“...come back,” she pleads, and he is at her side in an instant, nudity irrelevant as he bundles her into his arms.

“Rey,” he coos, her name falling from his lips for the first time, a symphony to her ears, an instant salve to her wounded soul. He gathers her, folding her legs across his lap as he runs a hand up and down her back, the other coming to gently massage at her wrists.

“I thought,” she hiccups, the words still hard to get out through the blankness of her mind, “I thought you left. I thought I was alone.”

He freezes at the admission, and this time it’s his turn to shudder. 

“You’re not alone.”

A choked sob is pulled from her throat of its own accord, both at the relief in truth and the tenderness with which he applies it.

And then, she looks up, her first acquaintance with his eyes, sensing her loneliness could only account for half the stock in this endless scene.

“Neither are you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [let’s chat](https://twitter.com/beccastanz)


	4. Please

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I needed to know,” he continues, a small pause causing a deafening silence before he manages, “—if you’d stay.”
> 
> “I stayed.”
> 
> “I’m glad.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am again stunned by the response to this fic. It warms my heart to know that maybe this thing that I’ve made that is special to me might also be special to some of you. 
> 
> Remember to feel no guilt consuming any kind of fic!
> 
> New moodboard by the incredibly lovely [flowerofcarrots](https://twitter.com/flowerofcarrots)
> 
> [vuas](https://twitter.com/thevuaslog) is my savior

  
Their loneliness hangs in the air—it’s muggy, impossible to breathe through the cloying density.

Now that she’s looking, she can see a red line bisecting his cheek—her own doing.

Confronted with reality, her eyes snap back down, now looking at her wrists, dwarfed by hands capable of violence—and yet, so tender in this moment that she can feel more tears well up in her eyes.

The trembling of her body continues of its own accord, unnerving, unending.

When he removes the hand that was slowly bringing circulation back to her wrists, she sobs again, strength to contain any of the truth ripped from her by his perceptive ministrations, leaving her a mess of simultaneous relief and confusion, serenity and panic.

He brings a glass of water she hadn’t noticed before to her lips, and her thirst hits her like a freight train, nearly as hard as the realization of what he’s done to her.

He’s cracked her open to the core, uncomfortably perceptive of her needs, her boundaries, where to push just right to get her to break.

Finally.

She gulps as he tilts relief down her throat, her eyes and heart closed against her own need for care—still resistant to accept that she may ever need someone.

_I don’t want him because I don’t need him._

And yet, here he is, this stranger, elevator man, Kylo, Ben, seeking the subtext in her post, peeling back the words to discover the clarity she could not provide.

She needs to be allowed to need.

When he wraps his arms under her knees and carries her to the bathroom, she tries to muster a whimper of protest.

Instead, it is one of relief.

“I’ve got you,” he whispers into her hair, tendrils stuck to her forehead with sweat, as he carries her toward the bathroom.

Those words provide a deeper sting than any slap.

The light in the bathroom is blinding after so long in the dark, and she fights an instinct to bury her face in his chest, no matter how solidly warm and comforting it may be.

A rushing sound accosts her eardrums, and she sees the bathtub half full of steaming water, steadily rising.

The counter has several additions—it looks like a drugstore shelf, though he moves too quickly for her to see any labels. A peek at the trash can reveals a tied off condom, and despite the level of intimacy they’ve already shared, she blushes.

The blush is followed by a wave of self-admonishment. Perhaps she should’ve asked mystery man to wear a condom in advance. 

She got lucky.

“I’m going to give you a bath, okay?” 

She thinks back to all of his other questions.

_“Do you think you can be a good girl for me?”_

_“Let’s try this again, shall we?”_

_“Now, I think it’s time you learn what happens to disobedient sluts, hm?”_

Nearly rhetorical questions, the lot of them, and yet his tone now leaves room for interpretation, like she could potentially refuse him.

Rey is too tired to interpret, unwilling to realize that she does have a choice now. If she doesn’t have a choice, then it’s okay to accept his help, right?

“Okay,” she whispers, still too shaken to look back at his eyes.

First, he settles her on the seat of the toilet, allowing her a moment of privacy as she uses it. They quickly trade places, then he picks her back up in a bridal carry to bring her to the tub. 

When he deposits her into the water, she remembers her reluctance to use the tub every day this week, too afraid of the decadence, the pull of being surrounded by comfort. She was right to be cautious, especially when he wraps one hand under her chin, guiding her gaze to his as he asks, “can I join you?”

A tremor colors his tone, achingly familiar.

_“Just tell me you like it and I’ll let you come...”_

And she remembers more, remembers _this is intense on both sides_ and she finally, _finally_ understands. 

She can need him, because he needs her just as much.

Rey nods her assent, chin still held delicately in his palm.

He steps away and she instantly feels a desperation for him to return, cool air unwelcome against her skin as she remembers every inch that he touched, brought to life under his palms. She needs him to be the warmth that surrounds her on all sides, the intensity of her realization throwing her train of thought into a tailspin as he returns, a small carton in his possession.

“Epsom salt,” he explains as he pours the crystals into the bath, “for soreness.”

She blushes again, wrapping her hands around her knees to bring them under her chin in the absence of his hand.

“That’s...thoughtful of you,” she whispers into the small divot between her legs.

“It’s the least I can do,” and though she cannot bring herself to look back in his eyes, she can still hear the small tremor beneath his words.

He reaches for the faucet, ceasing the stream of water before climbing in.

The tub is large enough for them to each take up residence on one side, to face each other and not touch.

If they wanted to, that is.

But when he settles in behind her, legs open in an invitation, she realizes that this is a test without an option to fail—because there is only one option that makes any sense at all.

Now, the feelings being tamped down are hesitation and reluctance in favor of acceptance and relief.

They can fuel each other, her needs a salve against him and his against her.

When she scoots back and presses her back against his chest, a chaste mimicry of their position only shortly before, it feels right in a way nothing else has.

This time, when she whispers “please,” reaching for his arms to envelop her, she relishes in the rightness, of allowing herself to have this, because the relief in the figure surrounding her is as soothing as her own surrender.

But questions burn just below the surface—the blindfold provided a small amount of serenity, the option to perceive unallowed. Now, light reflecting off of white tile, the brightness was an assault on her senses, a stark reminder of reality as she considers how best to approach her curiosity.

In the end, she presses further into him, allows his hands to explore the areas of ache and soothe them as she closes her eyes, comfort sought in darkness. Her tongue loosens.

“Is Ben your real name?”

He nods against her shoulder where his chin rests.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before but...you seemed uninterested in transparency.”

He’s right. Now that she knows his name, how it feels passing her lips in the throes of passion, she can never unlearn it, can never relinquish the memory of the most complete satisfaction she’s ever felt.

He resumes his massage of her wrists beneath the water, the melting salts providing a balm on her more intimate areas.

The next question is harder to confront, but the emptiness beneath her lids provide just enough comfort to get it out.

“Why did you make me wait for you?”

Rey thought she was done with tears, but her voice cracks on the last syllable, a single drop of wetness joining the expanse around her. If Ben notices, he does her the courtesy of ignoring it in favor of providing her with answers.

“I had to make sure you really wanted it.”

She exhales at that, a deep thing, forcing every bit of air from her lungs.

“But I did want it. I told you I did,” she gets out, tension returning to her muscles.

This he certainly notices, moving his ministrations up her arms, working against them in an attempt to soothe.

“I know.”

She huffs at the return of the barest undercurrent of his cockiness, and he continues.

“I hope you can forgive me for being cautious,” he starts, and Rey realizes that she was indeed harboring some resentment. He has found a part of herself she was unaware of yet again. “It was clear to me from your messages that this wasn’t something you do often. Or at all?”

This time when his voice turns up at the end, she knows an answer is required.

She nods, a small movement against his chest, eyes still screwed shut against feeling, keeping it trapped.

“I needed to know,” he continues, a small pause causing a deafening silence before he manages, “—if you’d stay.”

“I stayed.”

“I’m glad.”

Silence again, though Rey’s final question stews in her belly, fermenting until she is drunk with need.

His hands have moved to her legs, massaging out a pain she didn’t know she had, adding to her drunkenness, but still not enough to let the inquiry pass her lips.

“Rey.”

It’s just as electric the second time, and he can feel her holding back.

“Just ask. I’ll tell you if you ask.”

She’s fairly certain this man has taken up permanent residence in her psyche, filling an unknown void. It’s terrifying to consider what that void will feel like when it opens again, makes her all too aware of the gape. But she can handle loss—she will thrive on the pain, just as she always has.

In the meantime, she’ll soak up the last of the comfort, the last of surrender, the last of connection as she teases it out of him and brands it into her being.

It’s like pulling teeth to force herself to open her eyes, unable to tear her body away as he continues spreading sensation over every part of her, inside and out. She turns to rest on his shoulder, eye contact a necessary intimacy for the weight of her query.

“Why do you do this?”

One of his hands breaks the surface of the water. He pushes a stray lock behind her ear— _just...please..._ —as he studies every inch of her face, contemplating. 

Every fiber of her being screams at her to look away, to shy from his gaze, but she won’t. She needs to know this man who knew her from the moment he pushed her to pick a safeword, who understood her enough to force her to wait for him, knowing that the second she resigned herself to a hopeless fate was just the right one to pounce.

She remembers his messages, every word dripping with precision, and she can see it translates in person as he chooses each word with the same care he placed in every lick of his hands on her body, both in the throes of darkened passion and now, casually bathing her in affection.

The water is turning cold but he is right and warm and she has to know.

“I’ve broken a lot of things in my life,” he admits, and there is that word, that delicious word, _break,_ and fuck if that doesn’t make her want him even more, even now, even as his movements entirely contradict those he laid upon her before.

It’s startling to think she may enjoy him outside the context of this scene.

“It feels...good, sometimes, to break something, to have that control,” and this confession should scare her, but it only draws her in, bringing a clarity to his motivations that she understands at her core, “but it’s more than that.”

He takes a deep breath, and now Rey moves back to face him straight on, water sloshing, skin tightening as she reveals it to the air, ripe with confession.

“I just need to know that...sometimes, if I break something, I can put it back together.”

Midnight is ripe for confessions, and his leaves her stunned. He is laid bare and she _wants._

She finally allows herself to touch him, cupping his cheek in a mirror of his ask to join her in the bath, an ask she is grateful to have granted.

Her voice trembles along with her body, but she forces herself to make the words come.

“Put me back together, Ben.”

Ben shakes under her hand, gently grabs her wrist so he can twist and press a tentative kiss to her palm.

“Okay.”

This may be a single night, a blip in the course of her life, but Rey refuses to let it slip by without feeling every moment, without understanding at least once what it is like to have someone be everything to her. The impending ache of loneliness is pushed away in favor of cultivating a memory that would keep her satisfied long past his abandonment. 

He stands to exit the tub, offering his hand.

She takes it.

He dries her off with painstaking care, silent as he works. She lets him move her body as he sees fit, reveling in his careful attention. Then, he picks her up again, depositing her on the counter next to the sink under the brightest patch of light.

He starts at her face, delicately holding her chin as he moves her head back and forth, inspecting her cheeks.

“Do they hurt?”

“Just a bit,” she admits, and he sighs, clearly conflicted until she continues, “but it’s a good hurt. All of it is.”

Now, she can see his grin instead of hear it—she’s caught off guard at the constriction of her chest at his radiating joy.

“Good. It shouldn’t bruise, but you should take some ibuprofen for the swelling, just in case.”

He reaches for one of the bottles on the counter, depositing two small pills into her palm and rushing to get her a glass of water in an effort to keep her from lifting a finger.

She swallows them, and his eyes follow the movement of her throat.

“And here?” Ben asks, trailing a finger oh so softly down the side of her neck, his touch inspiring a renewed heat between her legs.

“I liked it...a lot,” she admits, just to see him smile again. She could get used to that smile.

“If you bruise it might be hard to explain, but I don’t think you will. I’m...practiced,” he explains diplomatically, even as the tips of his ears redden.

“Not many people in my life that would notice.”

She tried for levity, but his smirk turns sour at her words.

“Rey, I—”

“Sorry,” she cuts him off with a wave of her hand, “I didn’t mean to ruin the mood, it’s just...I don’t have a lot of people. In general.”

He still looks crestfallen at her admission, and she refuses to let this go off the rails due to a confession of a fact that no longer bothers her more than the occasional dull ache.

“It’s okay, I promise. Please, Ben,” and she stretches her throat under his fingers, urging him to continue his sinfully soft patterns against her skin.

He seems mollified, for now, and lingers at her throat a while longer before bending down.

She cannot help the small gasp that escapes at seeing him on his knees. 

He notices, but doesn’t acknowledge it past another small smile to himself.

He wraps a hand under each knee, inspecting them as she remembers the force with which he shoved her down against the carpet, the slight burn against them before she righted herself and honored his affections with an uppercut.

“You didn’t break skin,” she teases, playfulness nearly natural as he coaxes out a side of her that she likes.

Could she like herself?

“Still, they’re a bit red,” he says, now reaching for another tube. “This should help.”

He is as attentive here as he was in the bed, and she craves more of it. He rubs the cream into her knees like it is his dying wish to see her healed.

She feels herself getting hotter with every press of his hands. This should _not_ be turning her on, and yet, his admiration is pooling wetness between her thighs. She wills them not to shake—then he presses a kiss to one of her knees, and another battle is lost.

But it doesn’t feel like loss when he looks up to see her trembling and asks, “Can I eat you out? Please?”

Her head hits the mirror as she throws it back, unable to fathom that he may want her in that way.

“You don’t have to do that Ben, I—”

“I know. I want to.”

It’s hard to believe.

“You can let yourself have nice things, Rey.” 

She looks back down, and he smirks. “I think some part of you knows that, considering my credit card bill.”

She blushes at that, at a man who can project so much confidence while kneeling between her knees, perceptive enough to know what she needs to hear to let go.

“Speaking of which,” and then he stands _no wait she wants him down there_ and reaches for the phone (and a phone in the bathroom reminds her yet again of how stupidly wealthy he must be), pressing a button on the pad before placing the receiver at his ear.

“Hi, I’d like a steak, cooked medium, with fries. How long? Thank you.”

Her order from Monday night.

“I thought you might be hungry.”

She nods, heart full at the sensation of being so thoroughly cared for, now eager to see him back at her feet.

He returns, trailing his hands over her thighs, a suggestion of a push.

“So…”

“Please,” she whispers.

_I deserve nice things._

He pulls her to the edge of the counter, dropping to his knees, unbothered with finesse as he licks the first stripe, eager to part her lips under his tongue. She shudders.

He rears back, a look of awe as he murmurs, “fuck, you’re so wet already,” before taking another lick, this one seemingly for his own benefit as he feeds more kindness to her very being with a whispered “you taste so good.”

She throws her head back again as he dives in, no part of her left unexplored by his tongue as she pants heavily, hands gripping the edge of the counter. There is not an ounce of hesitation in his movements, and she realizes that he _likes_ doing this, and that he probably doesn’t allow himself to do it very often.

This was a night of luxury for them both.

His tongue prods at her entrance, barely breaching, and it’s enough sensation to make her realize just how sore she would be tomorrow, just enough pressure to have her keening at the blur between pleasure and pain.

“Ben,” she gasps, and he immediately detaches from her, looking up with a plea.

“Not too far inside, okay? Just...a little. Just enough.”

“Thank you for telling me,” he says, and she can tell he means it.

He dives back in, finally focusing on her clit, bringing her back up to the edge that she hadn’t even realized she’d found until she was there again, twitching under his tongue.

“Fuck, Ben, _please,”_ and begging is no longer shameful as she gets out between breaths, “just—your thumb—press—”

He knows what she means without a full sentence, sucking her clit into his mouth as he brings one hand toward her dripping cunt, pressing the pad of his thumb against her entrance.

Her climax crashes over her in another wave, grinding against his face in an attempt to draw out the pleasure coursing through her. He takes everything she gives with enthusiasm, refusing to let up until she wraps a hand in his hair.

It’s even softer than it looks.

He smiles as he stands, having the audacity to say “thank you.”

Before she can think too hard about that, there’s a knock at the door.

He licks his lips, and Rey is certain her entire being is blushing.

“I’ll get that. You get comfortable in bed, okay?”

She nods, still in a post-orgasm daze, still feeling a small ache when he disappears from her sight, lessened with the knowledge that this time, he would almost certainly come back.

She wraps in a fresh robe, realizing that during her half hour alone at the bar, he must have set this up—fresh robes and towels, glorified CVS on the counter, blindfold in the nightstand—all for her.

_I deserve nice things._

She exits the bathroom in search of blankets and warmth, mind replaying every debauched thing this bed has seen as she crawls beneath the covers. 

Ben is waiting—the steak already in bite size pieces as he walks over, plate in hand, and sits on the edge of the bed.

“Open.”

New context is everything.

The meat is still tough, but better when being fed to her with such careful attention. The fries are hot, but the burn doesn’t scare her.

She eats every bite by his hand, his care never wavering until she is sated, another glass of water downed at his insistence.

When he crawls in beside her, the last bit of tension escapes.

She is allowed to stay the night.

“Can I hold you?”

There is only one correct answer.

_I deserve nice things._

“Yes,” she breathes, and it’s easier when she’s not facing him, her self imposed blindfold a comfort again, especially when he finally allows himself to return her question.

“Why did you want this, Rey?”

She shudders in his grasp for the final time that night, soul laid bare.

“I’ve fought for everything my entire life. I just...wanted to be allowed to lose. Just once.”

She hears him exhale, feels the warmth of his breath on her neck as he absorbs her confession.

She drifts off before she allows herself to take it back.

————

Rey opens her eyes to the sunrise, stirring in the arms of a near enigma.

The previous night floods back— _disappointment chagrin loss fear arousal heat want desire pain comfort ache_. The symphony consumes her, and when she looks to the man beside her, the whirlwind is reflected in his awakening eyes.

“Do you have to go?”

She nods.

“Work.”

“I can take you, if you want.”

Even after last night, the offer surprises her. What they shared under the cover of night was not meant to be brought out in the light of day, and yet...she wants to say yes.

“It’s just down the street. I was going to walk.”

“I can walk, you know.”

He’s still cocky.

It bothers her less now.

“Okay,” she acquiesces.

His grin returns.

“I’ll get you some breakfast while you pack.”

She gets dressed, stuffs her wardrobe into her bag (and finds just enough room for a robe), all the while mind reeling with goodbyes. She’s distracted. When Ben appears in front of her in a full suit holding out a bagel, she is so stunned it takes a full five seconds before she reaches for it, taking a huge bite in lieu of conversation.

“Shall we?”

She nods, and he takes her bag without asking, opening the door to the real world.

The walk is short, too short, much too short for Rey to contemplate what might happen when it ends. Ben, it seems, is content to stroll in silence. At least, that’s what she assumes, as he’s made no more of an attempt to speak than she has.

When the garage comes into view, she loathes the sight even more than usual.

“That’s me,” she croaks, her first words since sharing a bed.

“Rey, I need to tell you something.”

Her heart rate spikes, as would any normal persons’ when confronted with such an expression. He hands her her bag, and she’s suddenly grateful for the distraction. 

“Okay,” she manages, “what is it?”

“It would be...irresponsible not to point out how dangerous it was for you to meet me.”

She sucks in a gasp at the bluntness—but he’s right.

“You didn’t want safewords, and I could’ve been some creep who doesn’t know where the lines are, or someone who refuses to wear a condom, or worse.”

He’s right.

“Part of why I said yes to you is that I knew someone else would take advantage of how new you are to this.”

He’s _right._

She lets out a small “hm” at his words, unable to fight but still vaguely ashamed at the truth, at the admonishment of her recklessness.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is,” he clears his throat, and this time he is the one to look away, “be careful with the next guy. Please.”

He turns away, body in the direction of the hotel, and Rey knows she has to make a choice, one undeterred by every instinct screaming at her to let him go.

She can’t let him go.

“Ben,” she nearly yells, though he’s barely made a gap between them. She is fueled by her desperation, and attempts to calm it before the scariest phrase she’s ever uttered escapes her.

“What if there wasn’t a next guy?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All that’s left is an epilogue now! Thank you all so much for reading. I adore your comments. 
> 
> As always, happy to chat on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/beccastanz).


	5. Firsts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He presses a bit harder, the drag of leather like sin, and all rationale escapes. He can have her.
> 
> Trust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We did it—we made it to the end, today, on my two month fic anniversary! “Thank You’s” are in the end notes, but for now, I’ll just remind you: Guilt Free Fic consumption. Tags have been updated and are in full effect. CW for minor character injury (no one you like, I promise) and brief mention of safewording.
> 
> [vuas](https://twitter.com/thevuaslog) is everything!!!
> 
> Beautiful fic art/moodboards gifted by the lovely [Allison](https://twitter.com/alantieislander), [batsy](https://twitter.com/bvstila), and [Lane](https://twitter.com/LaneReads)

**Six Months Later**

Rey wakes to silk against her cheek and a rapidly cooling divot in the mattress.

And she thought _she_ was an early riser.

There’s a lot she’s learned about Ben in the last six months—a lot they’ve learned about each other. A lot they’ve learned about themselves.

Perhaps the most startling revelation of all was that even vanilla sex could be good with the right person—fucking after a night of binge watching on his stupid fancy couch, cuddled beneath blankets that made it easy to shift onto his lap and writhe against him until he had no choice but to shuck his sweats down just enough to slide into her welcoming heat, her sleep shorts pushed to the side, skin on skin and dripping wetness afforded by that magic little pill she takes oh so religiously at 6:30 every morning.

The nights where he shoves her to her knees and chokes her with his hands and his cock are good too.

Through her reminiscing, she rolls out of his bed— _maybe, one day, their bed—_ and pads to the kitchen, an exaggerated frown on her face as she spies the carry-on next to the apartment door.

“Leaving me again?” Rey teases, attempting casual but failing to keep the small amount of hurt from her voice.

“I know, sweetheart. I’m sorry,” he apologizes with a kiss to her bed head, “but it’s just for one night this time. I promise.”

He sets down a plate of fresh bacon and eggs on the kitchen island, so delightfully anticipatory of her needs, perceptiveness only growing with time.

The ease with which they’ve integrated so much of their lives still scares her, but the fear makes it better, just as it had on that first night.

She seats herself in front of her thoughtfully prepared breakfast, but before she can get a bite in, Ben pulls her into a toe-curling kiss, morning breath and all, arching her back near painfully to meet his lips as he sighs into her mouth.

He leaves her panting, breakfast forgotten as all she can think about is getting that mouth anywhere and everywhere—but the universe has other plans.

“I’ve got to go. Stay as long as you’d like, okay?”

She nods, still a bit dazed but thrilled as always with free reign in his apartment.

“And happy six months,” he throws over his shoulder as he crosses the threshold, bag in hand.

A flurry of feeling passes through her—arousal at his kiss, sadness at his departure, hunger for the frankly delicious looking meal in front of her—far too much for such an early hour.

Food first.

As she clears her plate, his last words ring in her ears.

Six months—he was counting since their first night together, the tipping point in her life when she realized not only what she was missing, but the terrifying thought of letting it slip away.

She washes the dish, then traipses to his ridiculous bathroom. 

The first time she saw it, his choice of hotel made complete sense. He was accustomed to luxury, a claw foot tub and a shower similar to the one she used so many times before his arrival were both present, along with a double vanity and a heated toilet—complete with a bidet. The first time he convinced her to try it, her squeal of confusion had him doubled over with laughter, the crinkles at his eyes enough to distract her from the embarrassment. Now, she loves how clean she always feels when she’s with him—at least until he dirties her back up with his mouth and his cum.

After six months, scant few places remained untouched—though she doubts that will be the case for long.

She readies herself for work, a small drawer in his bedroom dresser dedicated to her—so soon, and yet, so right.

She doesn’t miss the long commute on mornings like these, mornings that have become more and more frequent. Rose jokes that she’s getting the better end of the deal, half the rent and an empty apartment more often than not. She remembers the day that Ben and Rose met, how Rose took one look at him, turned to her, and said, “now I understand why you were gone for a week.”

He’d blushed, and she’d snorted, and it felt glorious to integrate him into her life, even if the “how they met” story had to be slightly edited.

On her walk to the shop, she recalls the first night she stayed over at his place, a few weeks in, still so new. He was barely a mile from the hotel, and she’d berated him for the waste of money. 

“It was worth it,” he’d said like it was the simplest thing in the world, and when he tied her to his king size bed and spanked her cunt until she came, a puddled mess on his fancy sheets, she thought that perhaps he was right.

She arrives at the garage, and as she has every morning since it went up, she smiles at the sight of the banner.

“ **Under New Management** ”

When Plutt had a heart attack, she knew this was her chance—a chance to have something for herself, and if she got to stick it to the bastard in the process, well, that was just a bonus. He gave her a good deal, no doubt realizing her wealth of information on his less than stellar business practices.

When customers started getting charged fair prices, business boomed, and she was even able to hire someone new—Finn Storm, another orphan, a new friend, fiercely hard-working and kind. Sometimes his boyfriend brought him lunch and they would sit and chat. Rey had people now, more to add to her small circle, Rose and Ben and Finn and Chewie and Poe and she was happier than she could ever remember.

When she opens the garage, the first car she sees is Ben’s, a rather ostentatious blue BMW in desperate need of an oil change and new brake pads. She’d teased him relentlessly the first time he tried to take her for a spin, immediately recognizing the grinding noise and telling him under no circumstances was he taking them anywhere other than the shop. Now that she was his regular repair woman, a suspicious number of his colleagues started making her garage their shop of choice.

She couldn’t fault him for his appreciation of her admittedly flawless work, not even after their first fight, the one where he’d offered to buy the garage for her, slow to realize just how deep it cut to hear him so flippant about something so significant. But he’d listened and learned; that night she finally got her chance to wrap her hands around his throat like she’d so desperately wanted to the first time, when he’d spanked her and called her sweetheart and tilted her world on its axis.

The environment of the shop is so much easier, relaxed, although technically she’s the boss now. She, Finn, and Chewie work their way through the backlog, interspersed by customers arriving for pickup and a couple of coffee breaks. 

She’s thrust into a more melancholy memory when Finn knocks over an oil can.

Their first “date”—admittedly a disaster when she looks back on it. Confused and eager words were shared that morning he walked her to work, tentative plans to reconnect. 

A week later, he took her to a restaurant—far fancier than she’d ever experienced, or frankly wanted to experience. She would have been fine with another late night tryst, but he was determined to pamper her—a noble endeavor, but the wrong setting. She spilled a glass of wine that could pay for a week of her groceries into his lap, she sweat through her sundress, and they each put their foot in their mouths at least a dozen times.

But she was determined to get through the evening and into his bed, regardless of the nights’ failures. She pushed them into his apartment, avoiding his eyes, desperate to prove she was still deserving of his attention even though she didn’t feel like she was.

When he bent her over his kitchen island and called her a “worthless slut,” she safeworded, a pitiful murmur of “desert” eked out past the squish of her cheek on the cool tile, unable to hear reflected the worthlessness she felt in herself come back out in his deep tone.

So certain that this was the end, she tried to leave, bolted for the door before he could see her cry—but he didn’t let her. He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her back into his apartment and let her cry on his fancy suit and held her on the couch as she whimpered and gasped in the decidedly opposite way she had intended for that night. Through it all, he kept a firm grip, terror in his grasp at the thought of her leaving. She wanted to escape, wanted to run and block his number and forget the shame—but he didn’t let her.

It was terrifying to be so seen, but even more so to realize there were things neither one of them understood, another reminder of the fact that they were damn near strangers. That night, clothes stayed on, and they talked—hours and hours, no question left unanswered, no grisly detail too much to share, and a weight was lifted.

There was still more to learn, a journey of discovery made together, but that night shaped them in a way more significant than their first encounter.

She hasn’t needed the word since that night—but the comfort of knowing she can use it remains an embrace on her soul. She’s never unequivocally trusted someone before—with her heart, her soul, her body, but Ben is attentive and grateful and pushes her in ways she didn’t know she needed, and they just _work_.

She misses him when he leaves—even just for a night.

The day passes quickly through her nostalgia until Finn and Chewie head home, leaving her to close. She likes to stay late when she knows she can’t see Ben, likes to get ahead on the next days’ repairs and enjoy the quiet solitude that comes with a command of her trade.

It’s close to sundown now, orange light covering the walls—until it isn’t. Rey hears the telltale noise of the garage door shutter hitting the ground, which it doesn’t typically do without a good pull. Only the few strategically placed lamps provide light now, artificial and cold.

That’s odd.

She pushes up from her crouched position next to Ben’s BMW to look toward the door—and ends up thrust over the hood when a gloved hand grabs the back of her neck. Another grips her waist and she is bent at a ninety degree angle, legs spread and arms thrown to either side of her face by instinct.

Panic, confusion, desire hit rapid fire as she assesses her new position, at the mercy of her captor, alone.

“What have we here?”

That _voice_.

He’s certainly got a knack for keeping her on her toes—and now she’s practically suspended by the hand at her waist, pulling up until only the tips of her shoes graze the concrete.

Happy six months, indeed.

He seems uncaring at the disheveled state of her as he unclasps her overalls, bringing the bib down over her tank top, her underwear, until the starchy denim is bunched at her thighs, stopped in pursuit of the ground by his legs between hers.

He removes the hand at her hip to trail around her front, the slightest threat of touch at her mound, then further, until leather pushes cotton to the side and teases at her entrance, already growing wet from fear turned arousal.

She has to say something, has to give him an out, there’s no way he could actually like this—

“Please, stop, I’ve been working all day and I’m a mess, I must be disgusting, don’t you want—”

“Do you think I give a fuck about any of that? You’re just a hole to me, sweet girl,” he whispers into the ear not currently pressed against his car. His hand trails further back until her ass is at its highest arch, his wrist bent under her. He brushes against a ring of muscle that has Rey clenching down in protest, “—or holes, I suppose.”

Fuck. 

Somehow, after six months, there’s still something new to share—but this can’t possibly feel good, can’t be right, why would he—

He presses a bit harder, the drag of leather like sin, and all rationale escapes. He can have her.

Trust.

When he pulls his hand away, she whines at the loss, already overcome with want and desperation—her effort to hold back fails, and he notices.

He steps back to look at the picture she makes, spread over his car, already flushed and shaking. She could flip over, could pull up her overalls and fight him into the concrete, but that’s not what this is, not today. Today, she dips into her willpower reserve, stocked from the nights of sitting on her own hands while she waited for the tension to snap. Right now, they’re swimming in it as he rakes his eyes over her form, content to watch her think herself into a frenzy, growing wet under his stare.

She couldn’t say how long he leaves her like that to tremble—minutes, hours, days—all she knows is that she needs absolutely every part of him inside any part of her she can take. 

Damn it, she wants to be a good girl for him. But he doesn’t need to know that.

After an age without touch, he comes back with his gloved hand at her waist—and rips her underwear off like it offends him.

Cool air hits her exposed flesh and she can’t help but tremble, arching her back in his direction in a wanton display. She keeps her mouth shut through a small gasp, but she knows, she _knows_ her body is betraying her—and now he has an unobstructed view of the evidence.

“I’m going to absolutely wreck you, and all you can do is drip down your thighs and whimper like a fucking whore.” 

His voice is pure composure, but the sound of leather-clad clenched fists gives Rey a boost of confidence. He’s bound to snap. Especially when she nods at his words, a barely there thing.

“You’d probably bend over for anyone, huh? I should teach you what happens to sluts like that.”

“Maybe you should,” she bites, a burn in her veins born of playing with fire.

The crack of leather against her ass is painfully good, the sting of the fabric electrifying the sensation, the noise nearly violent as it pierces the air.

She fears her hands may dent the hood before this is all over, and yet she doubts he would mind, evidence of their passion bent into the metal.

When she moans, he huffs in annoyance.

“Was that supposed to hurt?” she asks.

When she sneaks a peak at his eyes, they’re nearly the same black shade as his gloves.

He’s absolutely striking like this, barely holding it together, determined to ruin her like so many times before—but this is different, better, the time and care he put into the surprise nearly blinding in its thoughtfulness, and not for the first moment in their time together, she wonders: is this love?

Contemplation flies out the window when he spanks her again, this time with the full force of his daily gym routine behind it.

It’s certainly going to leave a mark, and she smiles through the tears, a dark thing as she waits for the next blow.

She can picture it now—their shared day off tomorrow, him massaging the soreness out, showering her with praise and letting her rest on her belly in his bed while he hand feeds her and eats her out from behind and—

She’s ready to earn it.

He strikes her again and again until she’s surely made a mess of her thighs, until her flesh must be bright red and shining under his careful attention, until she is a blithering mess of tears and moans and begging for him to…

“...please, please fuck me, I’m so empty, god Be-please,” she gasps, barely able to hold back from shattering their game in her desperation.

“Empty, huh? I think I need to fill all those pretty holes, don’t you?”

Her nails leave scratches in the paint from how hard she clenches every muscle, every part of her flushed and ready for anything he could think to give.

She still hides her face, instinct hard to overcome at the thought of him claiming the last part of her left untouched.

When she hears the drag of his zipper, its Pavlovian—her mouth waters.

She can’t help but turn around at that, sinking to her denim clad knees, free of shame as she begs through the rivulets of wetness trailing down her thighs.

“Please fuck my mouth, I—”

He pulls her up by the neck, effectively cutting off her pathetic desperation with a slap, matching leather burns now on three cheeks. Could she make it four?

“You think you’ve earned that?”

“Maybe I’ll go find it somewhere else,” she retorts through the pressure on her neck, purely to get a rise out of him. It should be transparent—but it works. Now all of her cheeks match, and he bends her back over the hood of the car with a delicious sting thrumming below so much of her skin, heightening every sensation.

His hand finds the back of her neck yet again as he pushes into her in one smooth thrust, and she still can’t get over just how right it feels to be split open by him, to be pushed to her limit around his length, never pain free on the first thrust and yet she absolutely craves it, the burn, the stretch, how she’s forced to take everything he has to offer. She’s hit with an unexpected wave of emotion—she’s so lucky they found each other, that she lo—

He pulls her back, both standing as he pants in her ear, deliciously slow drag of his cock in and out and she just takes and takes and _takes_ and it’s so good but he promised to fill all of her holes and she’s pretty sure he hasn’t made good on that yet. His hand travels to the front of her neck now, while the other pries at her lips with a single thumb.

“Suck,” he commands, and she ignores him at first, still a bit peeved at the lack of cock in her mouth, despite the fact that it was filling her dripping cunt.

He feels her hesitation and leans in further, a threat brushing her eardrums as he whispers—

“It’s going in whether you suck on it or not, sweetheart. I suggest you get it nice and wet.”

She can’t help a full body clench at that, and she feels him gasp at the unexpected pressure around his cock.

Her lips part, and a leather clad thumb traces her tongue.

When he pulls it out, he clicks his tongue and sighs like a man who is not balls deep in hot wet pressure. Then, he pulls his cock out too.

She aches to be filled again, crying out at the loss, emptiness far more painful than any of his slaps could hope to match.

“That’s not going to be enough,” he chides when he looks at the glove, and he bends her back over, removing it with his teeth before gripping the wrist and spanking the leather down on her already abused ass. 

Rey is lost to sensation, to creativity, to the overwhelming ache in her cunt, in her heart, awestruck.

When he brings his hands to the reddened globes, he spreads them, pausing only for a moment to admire the view before he spits on her asshole.

Rey pounds a fist into the hood—there’s the dent.

“That’s better,” he muses before sliding back into her cunt, then bringing his bare hand to her other hole, now glistening from his mouth.

When he slowly pushes the tip of his thumb past the first ring of muscle, she’s sure she couldn’t feel anything better than she does at this moment. It’s barely an inch, but just enough to feel blisteringly stretched, consumed, _owned._

Then his other hand comes to her mouth and forces three clean leather digits past her lips. The heel of his hand tilts her chin back, his cock drives into her with an unrelenting force, and his thumb rests in her ass—he’s made good on his promise and she moans around the digits pressing further and further down her throat, unable to do anything but utter garbled pleas around his fingers.

“You’re doing so well, sweetheart,” he grunts in time with his thrusts, dragging in and out until she’s on the cusp of something she knows will be earth shattering.

She finds herself wishing he had more hands when she realizes all it would take is a swipe at her clit to push her over the edge.

He’s fried her brain so much she has somehow forgotten that she also...has hands? Perfectly good hands that just need his permission but she can hardly form a coherent noise around his fingers, just slowly inches one hand down and hopes he doesn’t stop her.

It’s her lucky night—when he tells her to “rub that pretty little clit, I wanna feel you come with all your holes full of me,” she sobs with relief, barely making it three clumsy circles before she’s clenching down around his cock, his thumb, sucking his fingers down and making a mess of her cheeks as she rides her climax as far as she can take it. She only realizes he came too when she starts to feel wetness beyond her own dripping out of her. 

He pulls out—from everywhere—and she collapses on the hood of the car, spent, unable to take more.

Or so she thinks.

“C’mon sweetheart, keep my cum inside and I’ll give you one more,” he whispers, bent over her body in a fierce display of protection. She’s boneless as she nods, using what feels like her last bit of strength to clench around the wetness in her cunt, knowing that whatever he has planned will surely be good—it always is.

“I’ve wanted to fuck you in that outfit since you first walked into the hotel, you know. I almost couldn’t wait when I saw you.”

She smiles—giggles. So does he.

He redresses before opening the door to the backseat and scooping her up to lay her down inside.

“Gonna stain,” she slurs through her post-orgasmic haze.

“Good,” he replies, and she preens under him.

He props her legs up to remove her shoes and overalls, then spreads them, giving him unfettered access to both of her holes, glistening with their shared release.

“I bet you can take a whole finger now, sweetheart. What do you think?”

She knows he’s really asking now, scene over as he takes stock of her debauched state, skin still certainly reddened from his palms as he catalogues every moment.

“I think so.”

He smiles and presses a kiss to her inner thigh.

“You’re so good for me, Rey. I—so good,” he breathes beneath her. She thinks perhaps he’s holding something back. It’s not like him.

But she’ll ask about it later because right now, he’s pulling off the other glove, clean skin bared to dip a finger into the trickling wetness of her cunt, already spreading down to her other hole as she relaxes into the softness of the cloth interior.

He uses the abundance of lubrication to ease his pointer finger inside, coaxed relaxation easy after the earth shattering orgasm she’s already had. She bears down on the intrusion just like the internet says, and finally, his finger is fully seated inside of her.

He pets at her thigh with his other hand, murmurs of “so good” and “sweetheart” pressed into her skin with his lips at her knee.

“Feels good,” she mumbles.

“Good. Now rub your clit so I can watch you clench, hm?”

That sounds good to her, so she reaches down with the last of her arm strength and circles her clit. He gently moves his finger, barely in and out to conserve moisture but enough that she shudders at the newness of the feeling. It barely takes a minute before she’s convulsing again, still sensitive from the first orgasm as she writhes, Ben holding her around his finger through the sensation until she finally collapses, legs falling against the seats.

He barely fits in the backseat with her, but that doesn’t stop him from crawling up her body to press the first kiss of the night against her lips. His eyes overflow with fondness, almost too much to bear, and she realizes what he’s been holding back, what he’s been waiting for her to say, patient as ever. And perhaps even more startling is the realization that she wants to say it.

She closes her eyes, brought back to that first night—the comfort of imitated solitude fuels her as she whispers, “I love you, Ben.”

And she’s an idiot, of course she is, because why are her eyes closed when she absolutely needs to see him right now? She is nearly violent in her haste to rectify her mistake—and the sight that greets her is worth it.

Fondness does not even begin to describe the way he looks at her now, eyes filled to the brim with hope and tears as he yet again tucks that one wild strand behind her ear.

“I love you too, Rey.”

A watery chuckle escapes them both.

Her ass chafes against the seats, his pants are stained with her arousal, and her underwear are torn to shreds and rest on the concrete.

She wouldn’t have it any other way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have so many people to thank for getting me to the end of my first multichapter fic!
> 
> Vuas: This story would not exist without you. When I dropped into your DMs with this idea, I was TERRIFIED that it was awful and no one would like it. I owe you the whole world, but I will start with this thank you 🥰 your beta skills kept me grounded and your encouragement every time I messaged you with some variation of “is this any good? for real?” you were so supportive. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!
> 
> Socratic Seminar Ladies: Turns out, English class can be fun when you find out your fic is the topic of discussion! I am still floored at your kindness and critical analysis, and I attribute my update speed to your kind words of encouragement (and Bri’s constant pacing).
> 
> Every person who has commented so far: Please know that I appreciate your words more than I can say. I bookmark and read and reread every single comment often, especially when I feel inspiration lacking. Thank you for taking the time to engage.
> 
> Rose: WE DID IT OMG
> 
> To the lovely [flowerofcarrots](https://twitter.com/flowerofcarrots/status/1277798743212011520?s=21) for your thoughtful comments and lovely twitter thread and general encouragement of this idea, THANK YOU!
> 
> All my twitter pals: You make my heart soar <3
> 
> For anyone who wishes to leave a comment anonymously, I have a [CuriousCat](https://curiouscat.qa/beccastanz) inbox. Feel free to drop me a line. I typically answer the inquiries on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/beccastanz/status/1273646103884333056?s=21) but happy to keep it private if you’d prefer.
> 
> To all the readers of this story: Thank you for making it to the end with me—this story has meant a lot to me, more than I can describe, and to see that maybe it means something to you guys too means everything to me.
> 
> THANK YOU!


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